Mark's top 40 at 40: 2

We're all the way down to #2 on the Mark Lyons countdown. If you've been following along with Mark's list, you know he's counting down his 40 favorite fighters to celebrate turning 40 this year.

This week Mark's letting it all hang out in honor of one of the sport's all-time great warriors.

Take it away Mark..

2. Evander Holyfield Career Record: 42-10-2 (27) Three favorite fights: Too difficult to narrow it down to just 3. Recipe for manliness- 1 part Erik Morales, 1 part Joe Frazier, 1 part Matthew Saad Muhammad and 14 parts Evander Holyfield. Back when the Olympics and amateur boxing actually meant something, I watched this man blaze through his competition like a shuttle to outer space. We all know the story of when he destroyed Kevin Barry so thoroughly that he brought Evander up to the podium, so I wont rehash it. I really am at a loss for words and quite honestly I'm both humbled and a little choked up in trying to do justice to this man. It astounds me when I run into people that have hate for perhaps the truest warrior/bad ass this sport has ever seen. He walked into the ring every time (still does) begging his opponent to out-man him. 46 yrs old, undersized and without the majority of his skills... I defy anyone to find the guy who can throw his nuts on the table and have them be bigger than Holyfield's. In fact, all of these steroid allegations came up because Evander needed a way to shrink his balls so they could fit in his pants. "Who wants some?" That's his motto, always has been and always will be. Unfortunately I'm just a working class man, but if I was Donald Trump, I would be offering Chris Arreola a fortune to get in the ring with The Real Deal. If I was down and out, I would bet my food stamps that we'd see Arreola on his face via the greatest left hook the division has ever seen (sorry Joe). For some ridiculous reason, everything about Holyfield is a "can't". The only real "can't" when it comes to Evander are that you can't hurt him, you can't take his punch and you can't beat him. 12th professional fight- 15 rounds with Dwight Muhammad Qawi. Are you kidding me?! One of the most epic wars the sport has ever seen. One of many to come. It's fairly clear that even a lot of modern fans haven't seen that piece of work. Hit me once and I'll hit you back forty times. After cleaning out a few other champs afterwards they rematch... "Qawi has never been off his feet" Oops. KO4 Holyfield. A bit before this was I was telling all my friends that Evander Holyfield was the guy to kick Mike Tyson's ass. Many say it, I lived it, and to the point that people got nauseated by how often I demanded the inevitable. And yeah, any age, anyplace, anytime, Mike Tyson is Evander's bitch. 100 times out of 100. Holyfield would never lose. You know why? Too much man. He would never acknowledge Tyson's hardest punch with anything less than a snarl. The Tyson apologists are nobody to be taken seriously. But at the same time, Mike was shot? His head wasn't in it? Twice? Really? Evander made him a girl when he was supposed to die in the ring. Don't you get it? He is Rocky. All you haters will be telling your kids that you once saw Evander Holyfield dodge a speeding bullet and leap a tall building in a single bound, because he kicked Superman's ass. March 11th, 1989, the day after my 20th birthday, Michael Dokes took him to the limit in the 8th round. You can say this guy is the man as much as you want, but until you see him get hit with 15 or 20 unanswered punches and get pissed about it, you don't really know. After an epic battle, a short, compact hook (the GOAT if you're paying attention) sent Dokes tumbling across the ring until the God of War sprinted across to help his descent to the canvas. Then what? A good bit of ducking from Don King followed. There are many things you can say about King, but keeping Tyson far away from Evander wasn't one of his bad choices. Holy was Mike's daddy 365/24/7, when they finally met it was decided in a matter of seconds. Right hand by Tyson...harder right hand from Holyfield, and a sneer from heaven that said, "Yeah boy, I got you now." That's the most overwhelming thing about Evander Holyfield, he always had you. When he danced with Riddick Bowe in maybe the greatest round I've ever seen and later said "I think I got him", who the hell didn't believe him? Should I go on all night and all day tomorrow? I can. One of the most beloved boxers of his era and conversely one of the most sickeningly underrated. Is there anyone you can confidently take against him? So many memories, for so many years all the way up to the cannonball left hook he sent Lou Savarese to the ground with. Hey Lou, big props baby. Joe Frazier never hit Ali that hard. Oh, by the way, Bert Cooper got brutalized in the very round he "almost stopped Holyfield". What's the best way to counter a wild knockdown? I'd have to say with 75 consecutive uppercuts. YouTube Break Holyfield vs Cooper Legendary Nights: Bowe Part 1 Legendary Nights: Bowe Part 2 Legendary Nights: Bowe Part 3 That trilogy, one of the greatest ever, ruined the victor forever. The refusal from so many to give their respect to Holyfield has made Bowe a somewhat underrated figure in heavyweight history. Would you bet money on Joe Louis against the Riddick Bowe that challenged Holyfield? Me either. The greatest example I have of the fighter and the man Evander Holyfield was from the Jim Rome show hyping the rematch with Lennox Lewis. "It must be crazy watching a guy that big run from me. Who won? Who cares? Why don't we fight until someone gets knocked out?" Lewis was many things, but he wasn't stupid. You don't try to stand up to Holyfield. You can't win. Some personal highlights The first Bowe fight I lost a beard bet with a friend that would go for three months. I had said he would whip Tyson for so long that people remembered it for a decade. I got a call from a long time friend I had lost contact with to say congratulations. The night of, my roomate and I drank a half keg and didn't have anyone else over. It was our night with the great one. I issue a challenge to any reader, show me a fight when Holyfield got outballed and I'll buy you dinner. That's like asking you to show me a sexy Roseanne Barr picture. To recap... -beat supreme bad ass Dwight Muhammad Qawi over 15 grueling rounds in his 12th fight. -became the first man to knock Qawi out. -beat Michael Dokes in an ultimate test of manhood. -destroyed the conquerer of Tyson . -hurt George Foreman with all-time combination punching. -threw the first 40 consecutive uppercut combination in history vs. Cooper. -took Riddick Bowe's prime. -dropped Ray Mercer. -made Mike Tyson his bitch. -avenged his loss to Moorer ten fold (yeah haters, they fought twice). -brought the girl out of Lewis. -knocked out Ruiz with a body shot and then schooled him in the third fight. -kicked Rahman's ass. -schooled Valuev at 46 years old. Buddy, I am ashamed to have one fighter ahead of you, but you have been a bright light in my life. Nobody has proven me right more times than you have. One of history's greatest fighters and quite possibly the greatest warrior the sweet science has ever known. Nobody ever outmanned you and nobody ever will. Someday, God willing, I'll be in heaven listening to the Hendrix/Lennon band, eating steamed crabs and watching Holyfield/Frazier LXXIV. Your impact on boxing is under-appreciated by many, but not here. Evander Holyfield- Champion, warrior, and an inspiration to me always.

Mark's previous entries: Intro, 40-36, 35-31, 30-26, 25-21, 20-16, 15-13, 12-10, 9-8, 7-6, 5, 4 & 3.

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A Second Look At Holyfield-Tyson

Here is the second part of our look back at the night Evander Holyfield conquered Mike Tyson back in 1996. Two more of the members have chosen to share their memories of that unforgettable night in heavyweight history.

I remember opening the sports section in the LA Times on the morning of November 9, 1996, and seeing a sketch on the front page featuring a gigantic Mike Tyson looking down on a tiny, meek Evander Holyfield. Underneath was an article berating Holyfield as an overachiever with only marginal skills. His time has come, the writer said. This would surely be the end of his career.

While I thought the article was harsh, I couldn't argue with the sketch. In my mind Mike Tyson still had an aura of invincibility. The bitter taste of the Buster Douglas thrashing had long been washed away by the sweet KO streak Tyson was on, albeit over limited competition. After all, this was a 'focused' Mike. The kid that showed up in Japan six years earlier was someone else. And Evander? My last image of him was stumbling to the canvas, the cast iron encased in his jaw finally cracked by a short Bowe right hand. Presumably weakened by a decade of war inside the ring.

Two moments during the bout stripped away that aura for good. One was after the first round bell, when Mike threw a late punch that caught Evander flush. Holyfield immediately responded by popping Mike in the mouth. Tyson walked back to his corner, looking at Evander with a bit of shock in his eyes. He had met a man he was not going to bully. The second was the perfectly timed cross in the 10th round that made Tyson stagger across the ring into the ropes. You would've been hard pressed to find an expert who thought Holyfield could hurt Tyson, and here he nearly decapitated him with one punch. To his credit, Mike stayed on his feet, but the blow effectively ended the fight.

And with that, one man's legend grew tremendously while another man's shrunk; tiny and meek in comparison.

-Michael Nelson
oneeyeopen@gmail.com


I was probably the least surprised man in the world. I had been talking of Holyfield beating Tyson since before he was even a Heavyweight. It was one of my 100% stone cold locks for years. I wasn't quite as confident as I would have been before Mike went to prison or the Douglas fight, But there still was very little doubt in my mind that Evander is, was and would always be too much man for Mike Tyson.

-Mark Lyons
mark.lyons94@gmail.com
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How I Became A Lifer

by Lee Payton

Evander Holyfield has always been "too old" to me. By the time he was "Finally!" set to square off against Mike Tyson I was only 13 years old, and by that time the courageous former cruiser and heavyweight champion was thought to be physically worn out by nearly everyone. At 34 years old, he was to be a big name they could attach to posters and commercials in order to hype a big money event, but he wasn't there to stop the momentum "Iron" Mike Tyson had going when his was released from prison.

Mike was on a roll that brought back not only heavyweight gold, but his title of most dangerous man on the planet. Holyfield, on the other hand, looked like he was on a steady decline, and there was a feeling that this fight could be fatal for him.

I remember my dad talking about the fight in the days before November 9, 1996 and hearing how excited he was that it was going to take place after so many years, but he was also clearly worried for his man.

"If Holyfield was younger, Tyson wouldn't have a chance", he'd say.

I had been there with him for the second and third encounters with the skilled big man, Riddick Bowe, (my first boxing memories) and saw the way he reacted to the TKO loss in the mysterious final fight. Seeing him show so much emotion over anything, much less a sporting event, was something entirely new and shocking to me. That's when I realized just how much this fighter meant to him, but I didn't understand why just yet. All I knew was this was our guy now, so when the fight with Tyson was upon us, we were united in our rooting for the severe underdog.

On fight night I heard enough hype that I was actually afraid for Evander. Maybe it was because I was still a kid, or maybe it's because of the characters involved, but this seemed like way more than sport. I never had any fear that someone might get injured or die when I watched any of the other games out there. It just seemed like there was so much more on the line, given all of the dangerous elements at play, and I'll never forget that nervous feeling in my gut. It's a feeling I'm familiar with now, as most boxing fans are. It's that helpless "anything can happen" feeling that is somewhat special to boxing. I had already been given a taste of just how unpredictable boxing could be when I witnessed Holyfield beating Bowe handily only to fall apart out of nowhere, as well as the infamous Fan Man incident, but never was I as captivated by anything as I was for this main event.

In my mind it was clearly good vs. evil. Tyson was the street bully and convict who always seemed to be followed by hoardes of guys dressed like gangsters. My boxing knowlege had progressed enough to know that Tyson was Don king's man and in my father's house, King was a low-life criminal.

It was up to the humble, God-fearing, little worker to take down the evil empire of boxing.

When the bell rang to begin the fight, and Tyson exploded with a right hand bomb off the hero's shorn head, I thought our dream was through before it could even begin. Our guy was too old and too slow to keep the ferocious Tyson off of him, and it would be another one of those quiet nights.

But things changed quickly when not only did the old man stay upright, he came back to land some clean shots of his own and took the round. As excited as I was to see Holyfield in the fight I knew it could change at any moment. Mike could catch him with those cannon ball fists and it would be all over. However the stubborn over-achiever never backed down and was racking up early points, with my dad cheering him on from the counch behnd me, hunched in anticipation like Julio Cesar Chavez between rounds.

I couldn't even speak. The drama before my eyes had consumed me completely. I also didn't want to jinx Holyfield's work by celebrating prematurely. After the fifth round, when Tyson started to find the mark with brutal rights to the ribs and uppercuts to the jaw, I thought it was the beginning of the end. The warrior's old body just can't take this kind of punishment. It was nice while it lasted. If Holyfield was younger...

The minute between rounds 5 and 6 was completely silent as neither one of us wanted to say what we were thinking, but then Holyfield got that trademark bounce back and started really tearing into a bewildered Tyson. Everytime the champion tried to get something going, he was either hit or shoved back and it was clearly weighing heavy on his ill-prepared mind. Then, with about thirty seconds remaining, a desperate left hook attempt was countered beautifully by a short hook to the chest that put the baddest man on the planet flat on his shorts. Mike took the count and they went at it for the remainder of the round, but you got the feeling that Mike was simply fight back at this point.

We were still tense, but the "this could really happen" feeling crept closer with each round that our man didn't get knocked out. And was it my imagination, or was Tyson shrinking in there?

Round 10 was more of the same with the former champ manhandling a demoralized, but still swinging Tyson until a chopping right hand wobbled Mike's legs and had him looking to hold onto something. Holyfield tore into his dazed foe until seconds later he landed a perfect straight right on the chin that had Mike stumbling around on jelly legs eating bomb after bomb on the ropes, until the bell rang to end an unforgettable sequence. The house filled with screams of joy as Mike walked back to his corner, drunk. There would be no more sitting down for me.

The eleventh round was almost unnecessary. We all knew who the better man was on this night, but the bully did come out to take the tail end of his painful lesson. When some more classic Holyfield combinations had Tyson nearly turning his back in submission, referee Mitch Halpern wrapped his arms around the humbled, thoroughly punished combatant and called a halt to the fight.

"Wow. Now that was something. I want more!"

While my dad was busy cursing out Halpern for stopping the fight without Tyson laying flat on the canvas, I just stood there feeling something completely new. Maybe relieved, proud, amazed and deeply rewarded all at once. There have been times since where I've caught a taste of that kind of ultimate victory, but Holyfield's TKO of Tyson will always be special, as it was the beginning of my journey into the upside down world of professional boxing.

That crazy night is responsible for infecting me with the boxing disease. It's not something I'm likely to get over, nor is it a sickness that will have me out searching for a cure. I'm hooked for life thanks to Evander Holyfield. Read more!